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> How do they think they can possibly compete against huge factory farms? As with so many of these things, there's this idea floating around that the factory f

> How do they think they can possibly compete against huge factory farms? As with so many of these things, there's this idea floating around that the factory farms must be "bad" because they are big and wealthy, and that smaller, less efficient farms must be "good" because they are small and poor. Much like with all the other cases, this idea is somewhere between confused and blatant denial of reality. Money is the unit of caring. The amount of money that you're willing to spend on something is how much you care about having it, as precisely defined by the point at which it's too expensive and you don't care enough to pay that much. The factory farms are big and wealthy because they provide what people care about: an efficiently produced, consistent solution to the problem of what to have for dinner. If people really cared about their food coming from small, inefficient, "organic" farms then they would pay for what it really costs to produce food in that manner. The fact that people aren't willing to pay for it tells us that they don't actually care as much as they claimed. This is normal: most people will tell you they care deeply about something up until the point when you ask them to open their wallet, and then they remember that they don't care all that much. It seems to me that what's really wanted here is better factory farms with modest adjustments to reduce pollution, antibiotics use, and improve animal welfare. That's entirely achievable. It won't be achieved by things like this article; it'll be achieved by somebody who sets out to make a better factory farm and builds a business around that. This is already happening. http://spread.co.jp/en/ http://spread.co.jp/en/ plan to have what could be a game-changing approach to vegetable farming up and running in 2017. Whoever gets that system to work well enough at scale seems likely to sweep the 1990s-style farms off the map. It's the exact opposite direction from what the "organic" farmers have been doing: no low-wage labour, no battles over land, no getting caught up in politics. The next couple of years will be an interesting time for the food markets.

detaro 11y ago
>If people really cared about their food coming from small, inefficient, "organic" farms then they would pay for what it really costs to produce food in that manner. The fact that people aren't willing to pay for it tells us that they don't actually care as much as they claimed. This is normal: most people will tell you they care deeply about something up until the point when you ask them to open their wallet, and then they remember that they don't care all that much. That's something I felt was missing from the article: No talk about their pricing. People pay (or not pay) the price they are asked to pay, not the price the thing costs to make (and have no idea how high that is). Probably doesn't compare to the typical software-freelancer stories of "You should try to charge more than you think, clients pay that!", but it still would be interesting.
deleted 11y ago
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crdoconnor 11y ago
>If people really cared about their food coming from small, inefficient, "organic" farms then they would pay for what it really costs to produce food in that manner. The fact that people aren't willing to pay for it tells us that they don't actually care as much as they claimed. This is normal: most people will tell you they care deeply about something up until the point when you ask them to open their wallet, and then they remember that they don't care all that much. Logically speaking either this is bullshit or everybody who has ever said that they are struggling to give up smoking is lying.
- asuffield 11y ago
  I believe you are making the common mistake of confusing what people really want (the desires they act on), and what they say they want. What people say they want is usually "the thing that they want to want" - it's a bit meta. You can call that "lying" if it makes you feel better, but pretty close to everybody does it.
  - crdoconnor 11y ago
    >I believe you are making the common mistake of confusing what people really want (the desires they act on), and what they say they want. In other words drug addicts really want to be addicts. Otherwise they would have given up already. I suppose it's a useful canard if you're trying to justify American pro-corporate agricultural policy.
    - asuffield 11y ago
      > In other words drug addicts really want to be addicts. That is a reasonably accurate definition of the word "addiction", yes. When they no longer want the drug, then they are not addicted to it any more (this is a good example of how hard it can be to really change your desires). You appear to have some unstated objection to the notion that a dysfunctional desire is still a desire. I don't think this conversation can make any meaningful progress if you continue to avoid stating it.
vacri 11y ago
> The fact that people aren't willing to pay for it tells us that they don't actually care as much as they claimed. Or that they don't know. Supermarkets don't usually label their vegetables "BigCo" and "littleco". The problem with the 'market solves everything' approach is that it requires perfect knowledge on behalf of all parties.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  Large agricultural companies lobby the most to remove food labelling laws. IIRC they just got rid of the necessity to put country of origin on food.
- CountSessine 11y ago
  This is something I've often thought about with regard to organic farming. A claim is often made that modern agriculture and growing methods can decouple food's nutrition from traditional signals of nutrition like size and colour and blemishes. I don't know how true that is, but it seems like there's a branding failure here - that we somehow need to be able to select fruit and vegetables based on which specific producers made them rather than vague and inherently porous regulations governing what can be called 'organic' or 'natural'. Supermarkets might not like that - they'd have to better manage sales space to accommodate multiple known 'brands' of apples or oranges, but consumers would have a lot more reason to 'trust' self-interested brands of farms than they would an 'organic' commodity label. Any kind of a label that doesn't involve individual self-interested reputation but instead involves regulatory compliance is going to be gamed and ultimately ignored.
tie_ 11y ago
Thank you, sir, for the awesome comment!

detaro 11y ago

>If people really cared about their food coming from small, inefficient, "organic" farms then they would pay for what it really costs to produce food in that manner. The fact that people aren't willing to pay for it tells us that they don't actually care as much as they claimed. This is normal: most people will tell you they care deeply about something up until the point when you ask them to open their wallet, and then they remember that they don't care all that much. That's something I felt was missing from the article: No talk about their pricing. People pay (or not pay) the price they are asked to pay, not the price the thing costs to make (and have no idea how high that is). Probably doesn't compare to the typical software-freelancer stories of "You should try to charge more than you think, clients pay that!", but it still would be interesting.

deleted 11y ago

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crdoconnor 11y ago

asuffield 11y ago
I believe you are making the common mistake of confusing what people really want (the desires they act on), and what they say they want. What people say they want is usually "the thing that they want to want" - it's a bit meta. You can call that "lying" if it makes you feel better, but pretty close to everybody does it.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >I believe you are making the common mistake of confusing what people really want (the desires they act on), and what they say they want. In other words drug addicts really want to be addicts. Otherwise they would have given up already. I suppose it's a useful canard if you're trying to justify American pro-corporate agricultural policy.
  - asuffield 11y ago
    > In other words drug addicts really want to be addicts. That is a reasonably accurate definition of the word "addiction", yes. When they no longer want the drug, then they are not addicted to it any more (this is a good example of how hard it can be to really change your desires). You appear to have some unstated objection to the notion that a dysfunctional desire is still a desire. I don't think this conversation can make any meaningful progress if you continue to avoid stating it.

vacri 11y ago

> The fact that people aren't willing to pay for it tells us that they don't actually care as much as they claimed. Or that they don't know. Supermarkets don't usually label their vegetables "BigCo" and "littleco". The problem with the 'market solves everything' approach is that it requires perfect knowledge on behalf of all parties.

crdoconnor 11y ago
Large agricultural companies lobby the most to remove food labelling laws. IIRC they just got rid of the necessity to put country of origin on food.
CountSessine 11y ago
This is something I've often thought about with regard to organic farming. A claim is often made that modern agriculture and growing methods can decouple food's nutrition from traditional signals of nutrition like size and colour and blemishes. I don't know how true that is, but it seems like there's a branding failure here - that we somehow need to be able to select fruit and vegetables based on which specific producers made them rather than vague and inherently porous regulations governing what can be called 'organic' or 'natural'. Supermarkets might not like that - they'd have to better manage sales space to accommodate multiple known 'brands' of apples or oranges, but consumers would have a lot more reason to 'trust' self-interested brands of farms than they would an 'organic' commodity label. Any kind of a label that doesn't involve individual self-interested reputation but instead involves regulatory compliance is going to be gamed and ultimately ignored.

tie_ 11y ago

Thank you, sir, for the awesome comment!